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Wassily Kandinsky

1866–1944

Swinging 1925
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In Tate St Ives

Modern Art and St Ives

Biography

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (16 December [O.S. 4 December] 1866 – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated from Odessa Art School. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia). Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.

In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I. Following the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky "became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky" and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting. However, by then, "his spiritual outlook... was foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society" and opportunities beckoned in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.

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Bauhaus Constructivism Blaue Reiter, Der 1 more art term …

Artworks

  • Cossacks

    Wassily Kandinsky
    1910–1
  • Siebdruck fur den Verlag Sintesi

    Wassily Kandinsky
    1935
  • Swinging

    Wassily Kandinsky
    1925
    On display at Tate St Ives part of Modern Art and St Ives

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    How to Paint Like Kandinsky

Features

  • Exhibition Guide

    Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider

  • Inspired by

    Project Art Works: The Blue Rider Residency 2024

Related art terms

Bauhaus Constructivism Blaue Reiter, Der Mir Iskutsstva (world or art)

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